When a section-mate and I founded the HBS Art Appreciation Society last year, we wanted to encourage dialogue around the arts on the HBS campus, bring attention to the HBS Collection, and explore the Boston art scene with our classmates. We also aimed to infuse HBS with an appreciation for culture and beautiful things, to provide a shot of creativity and inspiration, and we wanted to do this precisely because it would not lead to a job at Goldman Sachs or Bain.
Would others share my passion for the arts? Would it even be respected? In search of answers, I sent out a Call For Artists this past September. I was surveying the HBS population for signs of creative life, expecting at best to find three or four students and partners whom I could coerce into participating in a small group show. Within three days I had received over forty responses!
Nineteen days later I spent eight hours in Spangler Project Room 201 as artist after artist brought me samples of their work. Along with a range of oil paintings, sculpture, pen and inks, photography, and watercolors, I was also privileged to view graffiti art and jewelry. We disrupted and challenged our antiseptic surroundings by using the dry erase board as an easel and the conference table as a pedestal. Spangler Project Room 201 will never be the same.
The works could not be more different, yet, in our conversations, I was amazed to find a striking commonality. Each artist exhibited a combination of qualities so rare that, in five years in the art world, I had not previously come across it. These students, these artists, possess both courage and an open mind. They were at once inviting me to share (and some thought judge) their intimate expressions even as they were interested in my reaction to their work, and in my own vision for the Show.
I learned so many things that day: a new way to look, a fresh vocabulary for the aesthetic, a deeper understanding of my classmates, and a model of what an artist can, perhaps should, be. I am honored to be able to bring you such an extraordinary body of work. Please make the time to walk through the Show. I promise you a transformational experience.
The First Annual HBS Student Art Show opens Tuesday November 12th in the Meredith Room of Spangler and will run through Thursday November 14th. The exhibition will be open from 11:30am – 5:00pm each day. There will be an opening reception on Tuesday from 5:00-7:00 pm.
